Airport Nightmare

August 6, 2009

Our first trip to an airport/train station where we weren't running to get there on time came in Berlin. That is where the good luck ended, however. The airport was crazy!! In fact, we're not even counting it as a part of Germany. We would hate to mar our impressions of this beautiful country by associating it with our airport experience. We were a bit early--about 15-20 minutes before they would let us go through security and check-in. We shuffled around things in our bags, trying to guess about how heavy 15 kg should feel. Finally, our flight came up to go through security. We got through fairly easily, then stood in line to check in. My blue piece of luggage came in at 15.3 kg, but the woman at the counter didn't say anything. We weighed the other bag and things were going fine until she told us we needed to go pay the check-in fee, go back through security, and then come straight to her where we would get our boarding tickets.

Not thinking this was a huge deal, we took off to pay the fee (we had added checked bags online--a change in itinerary that cost us about 20 Euros), and upon getting to the counter were told the price. I thought the man had said 18, so I handed him a 20. "Eighty euros," he clarified. "Eighty? Did it not charge anything to my card?" "Your card has been charged for your flight and luggage. This is the check-in fee. Eighty euros, please." So even though we'd tried to go cheap by flying on Ryanair, they got us in the end (the original flight was about 4 euros before tax, which came to about 60 euros for the two of us). Word of advice--if there is the remotest possibility you will want to check a bag, say so when you first order your flight or you might be looking at an 80 euro additional fee.

Then we went back through the first security check, got our boarding passes, and went to the second security point, This is where the real fun began. Every flight that was going out (there were about 6 at this point) were funneled into one/two security check lines. I say one/two because there were no formal lines. Just a mass of humanity trying to push their way up to the one roped gate where two security personnel stood trying to hold us back. One girl in front of us was determined to make her bag fit in the little box that tells you if your carry-on is the right size. She ended up jamming it in, getting it stuck, and having to pry it out. We all stood there while she tried to get through. All the while, people are pushing in from behind and all sides to get to the front of the line.

We made it through this eventually, and went back to another line to go through the gate that opened to a waiting room. We sat for another 20-30 minutes waiting for the plane to arrive so we could board. For some unknown reason, we thought that the seats were assigned, so avoided jumping into the mad rush that was people trying to get on the plane. We didn't get to sit by each other, but figured--not a big deal, at least we didn't get trampled to death. My mom had the sad luck of sitting by a boy from Brazil who was coughing a lot and had a concerned-looking flight attendant checking his passport. She was sure she was going to come out with swine flu. She seems okay so far...

So we got into Bergamo, grabbed our bags, and took off for the parking lot. Then we had to cross a busy highway--a nice Italian guy finally told us that if we went a bit further up, we would find an underground tunnel--and then were able to check into our room. It was quite modern and different than the Marriott. It is our own little joke to now walk into our room and say, with our noses up in the air and our hands outstretched in a dainty fashion, "Well, it's no 5-star Marriott, but I suppose it will do." The things we do to entertain ourselves after dragging our bags somewhere because we are trying to avoid paying for a taxi!